Right to Life encourages health practitioners to defend their ethics and patients by refusing to participate in the killing of the unborn and by opposing Pharmac’s anti-life proposals. They are extending access to the lethal murder drug Mifepristone and the prostaglandin, Misoprostol. These drugs are used to kill unborn children up to ten weeks gestation. The proposal which further victimises women, means that these drugs would be available and on hand for health practitioners authorised to provide abortion services. The ability to kill now extends to doctors, midwives and nurse practitioners. Women would not be required to go to a pharmacist to obtain the drugs.

It is important that the Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, the architect of the anti-life Abortion Legislation Act accepts full responsibility for the plight of women victimised by her appalling Abortion Legislation Act. Right to Life stands with women and their precious unborn and pledges to the women of New Zealand that we will not rest until it is repealed.

This proposal has been made legal by the new Abortion law, which intensifies the war on women and their precious unborn children. It trivialises the killing of the unborn which is promoted as a “health service”. Under the previous abortion legislation the lethal drugs were authorised only by a registered medical practitioner and were required to be administered and supervised by a doctor in a hospital or clinic licensed by the Abortion Supervisory Committee. Under the new Abortion law the drugs can be given to the woman in a clinic, hospital, doctor’s surgery or the women’s own home. In the home option there is a complete lack of medical supervision.

Despite claims that medication abortion is safe and easy, research proves that as many as five to seven percent of women who take abortion drugs will require follow-up surgery and three percent could end up in the emergency room. Self-managed abortions from home are especially dangerous; in fact, half of the abortion providers do not consider them safe, according to a 2019 survey published in the journal ‘Contraception’. Medical abortion becomes even more dangerous in situations where women cannot access emergency medical care.

Pharmac’s proposal will increase the pressure of the culture of death by encouraging doctors, nurse practitioners and midwives to accept the killing of the unborn as just a normal health service. This pressure will result in the following negative impacts;

It will put pressure on health practitioners who are committed and trained to respect and care for both the mother and her child as patients, to be become killers of our unborn.

It will place pressure on health practitioners to accept a responsibility to have these lethal drugs available to give to women seeking a medical abortion.

The proposal is just the first step in the agenda to make it compulsory for all health practitioners to provide drugs to kill the unborn. The ultimate objective will be to make it mandatory to have these drugs on hand to kill the unborn. Those practitioners who are not prepared to co-operate could be required to leave the profession.

The proposal of Pharmac will place increased pressure on a woman facing a crisis pregnancy to accept the killing of her child as the logical solution by:

Deceiving her into believing the destructive and wrong information in the Interim Guidelines of the Ministry of Health for the performance of abortions, “that abortion is safer for women than birth.”

Discouraging her from seeking pre-decision counselling and taking time to consider all the options of parenting and adoption that will protect her life and that of her baby.

Forcing on her the sole responsibility for the killing of her child by taking the Mifepristone.

The Prime Minister made a commitment after the 2017 election that New Zealand would have the most accountable and transparent government we have ever seen.

However this Labour led government has proven to be one of the most unaccountable and nontransparent governments we have ever seen.

Right to Life has written to the Prime Minister on four separate occasions to ask her to answer our questions on key life issues. We have either received no response or unsatisfactory one line answers.

Right to Life believes that we must protect our Parliamentary democracy, lest we lose it. When the Prime Minister or any Member of Parliament exercises their right to speak or vote in our Parliament on legislation, they are performing a public duty. It is recorded in Hansard for all to see, indeed for posterity and its a matter of public record.

We believe that the public have an absolute right to ask the Prime Minister and other Members of Parliament (and receive answers regarding their reasons) as to their reasons for voting for or against legislation brought to Parliament. Those who govern, do so with the permission of the electorate. If the Prime Minister is not prepared to be transparent and accountable, why is she expecting us to give her permission to govern us for a further term?

On 10 March 2020, Jacinda Ardern voted against the eight pro-life amendments to the Abortion Legislation Act that would provide increased protection to women and their unborn. One amendment, that of Simon O’Connor, would have provided appropriate medical care to a child born alive in a late term abortion. Another amendment, that of Agnes Loheni, would have given pain relief prior to an abortion to a child of post 20 weeks to avoid its suffering pain while being violently dismembered in the womb. We asked her on 13th March 2020 if she would please advise us why she voted against these compassionate amendments; there was no reply.

Right to Life also wrote twice to the other 68 MPs who voted for the Bill, comprising 36 Labour, 20 National, two NZ First, eight Greens, one ACT and one Independent. They were asked why they voted against the pro-life amendments; None replied except Louisa Wall.

Right to Life also asked Jacinda Ardern for the following important information:-
On 6th January 2020, if she would support our Society’s campaign for women’s equality by supporting the right of women to be born; there was no reply.

On 14 February 2020, under the Official Information Act, we asked the Prime Minister “if she had a policy to support a replacement birth rate of 2.1 (necessary to demographically maintain a natural population), or better and are you committed to implementing policies that will achieve a replacement birth rate of 2.1.” Her Chief of Staff advised that, “the Prime Minister had no such policies.”

Right to Life asked Jacinda Ardern on 21st April 2020, under the Official Information Act, “What medical or biological evidence do you have that the unborn child is not a human being with a right to life until it is born?” She refused to answer and referred our request to the Ministry of Justice.

Why then is it, that Jacinda Ardern has consistently refused respectful requests from Right to Life for information on her policies and actions.

Back in mid February 2020 prior to the passing of Jacinda Ardern’s Abortion Legislation Bill, NZ Family Planning (NZFP) sent a letter (see below), to all our MP’s in support of the Bill. It was signed by the leaders of 34 prominent national and regional organisations, many representing women.

Right to Life seriously questions whether the decision to sign this letter by their organisational heads is representative of the views of the majority of members actually working in many of the professions represented by them. Take for example the fact that one of the signatories to the letter was Allison Eddy, the CEO of the NZ College of Midwives. Right to Life doubts that the majority of Midwives in New Zealand would support their being required, as would appear to be the case under the new law, to not just be involved with, but rather to actually perform medical and surgical abortions. We think most New Zealanders, when they discover this, will find it abhorrent. Midwives are the guardians of life not purveyors of death.

Do the majority of members of the NZ Council of Women support our new laws which effectively allow abortion on demand up to birth? Again we have major doubts.

Right to Life urges those who value our unborn children to take action by contacting their MP to express concern about the provisions of this extreme bill. As we get nearer the election it is important that all those who uphold innocent human life do all they can to raise awareness and to push back on the encroaching culture of death.

Chris O’Brien

President Right to Life

The letter reads..

Dear (MP),

As organisations and services working for the health, safety, rights, and wellbeing of New Zealanders, we strongly support the passage of the Abortion Legislation Bill.

At its core, this Bill is about supporting women and pregnant people’s autonomy, dignity and wellbeing.

A woman knows what makes sense for her health, her body and her future. She should be enabled to control her healthcare decisions. Health professionals must be able to provide their patients with the best care possible without unnecessary barriers.

Our current abortion laws – unchanged since 1977 – are out of date and not fit for purpose. They create unacceptable barriers to healthcare access; and in doing so increase the distress, delay and financial burden faced by someone who seeks to end a pregnancy. They also result in inequitable access to timely abortion services, particularly for women living in rural areas, people who already have limited access to healthcare, and people who are affected by physical and sexual violence.

We write to record our strong and united support for the Abortion Legislation Bill as a sensible framework for safe, legal and compassionate access to abortion care.

As the Members of Parliament who will determine whether or not this Bill becomes law, we urge you to vote yes for a more compassionate healthcare system in New Zealand.

Signatories:

Family Planning – Jackie Edmond, Chief Executive

Te Wh?riki Takapou – Dr Alison Green, Chief Executive

The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RANZCOG) – Dr Celia Devenish, Chair Te K?hui Oranga ? Nuku and Dr John Tait, Vice President

Right to Life has been asking the DHB’s about the nature of these arrangements and seeking to obtain a copy of the contract and the amount being charged to the DHB’s for each abortion. We believe this information should be available for the public to scrutinise. It is also not good enough for the Health Boards to refuse to answer other questions we have asked relating to how Magma Healthcare will ensure the safety of women undergoing medical and surgical abortions.

Right to Life is now taking a complaint to the Ombudsman to test the validity of the DHB claims that they can refuse to answer on the grounds of commercial sensitivity. We do not believe they can justify their refusal to answer the questions we raise.

Right to Life is appalled that the Midwifery Council of New Zealand has now extended and gazetted its scope of practice to allow midwives, subject to education and training, to prescribe lethal drugs to kill unborn children in medical abortions and to violently dismember children in surgical abortions. This is a total violation of the ethics of the profession to protect mothers and their precious unborn.

Our midwives enjoy a well-earned reputation as caring health professionals who since the beginning of the human race have enjoyed the love and respect of the community. What greater vocation is there than to have the privilege to care for expectant mothers and their precious and vulnerable unborn children. We the community have a duty to protect our midwives and their professional standards.

Every child is a unique and unrepeatable miracle of God’s creation that is endowed at conception with an inalienable right to life. It is an unspeakable outrage for the government to inflict on our respected midwives a direction that they have a responsibility to kill the unborn at the request of the mother. This surely is a violation of human rights and a crime against humanity.

Right to Life asks, ‘Prime Minister, why do you want midwives to become killers?’ The community should be aware that this assault on women and their unborn children is her responsibility as the architect of the Abortion Legislation Act 2020. It was Jacinda Ardern who worked closely with the Minister of Justice, Andrew Little to draft this infamous Bill.

Right to Life believes that requiring midwives to kill the unborn will destroy the profession. Why should a pregnant women trust a midwife who believes that killing their child before birth could be a treatment option?

There will be no place in the profession for those midwives who are not prepared to kill the innocent and defenceless unborn. The conscience provision in Section 46 of the earlier CS & A Act have now been repealed. Those who refuse to kill on the grounds of conscience will be compelled by law to refer the woman to a midwife who is prepared to kill.

Right to Life requests that the government take urgent action to repeal this anti-life and anti- women legislation. We also urge that midwives in New Zealand defend their profession, defend their ethics and defend women and the unborn by refusing to submit to the government’s demand that they stain their hands with the blood of the innocent. They should be confident of the active support of the community.

The government is providing an estimated $13 million in its “Well being Budget 2020 Rebuilding Together”, budget, to fund the killing of an anticipated 13,000 unwanted unborn children as a “health service” in the coming 12 months.

The government is commended for seeking to promote the common good and in the words of the Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern in her forward to the budget document, “Government is committed to putting the well being of current and future generations of New Zealand at the heart of everything we do.”

But whose well being does the Prime Minister actually have in mind? Right to Life have asked her, how is she promoting the well being of the next generation by allowing one in five of our unborn children to be violently murdered, dismembered and their human remains being sent to the local landfill as medical waste?

The Prime Minister is the Minister of Child Poverty Reduction. Her aim is to help achieve a significant and sustained reduction in child poverty and to improve the well being of children and young people in New Zealand. It is encouraging that the government has given priority in this budget to reducing child poverty.

Why then does the government not recognise that the greatest poverty that can be inflicted on a child is for it to be violently deprived of its life before it is born? As the architect of the Abortion Legislation Act 2020 facilitating the killing of the unborn as a “health service”, is this Act an important part of the Prime Minister’s strategy to reduce child poverty in New Zealand?

The government has allocated $5.6 billion to promote the health and to protect the lives of New Zealanders. It is a great injustice and a crime against humanity that the government should provide an estimated $13 million to pay for the murder of new Zealanders before they are born. This was declared a core health service in 1977 by a National government with unlimited funding. There is to be no waiting list and every District Health Board has a statutory duty to provide this “service”.

Taxpayers have a duty to pay taxes for health services that protect life and promote health. We do do not have a duty however to fund the murder of the innocent. We in fact have a duty to oppose with all our strength the killing of the innocent and the wounding of their mothers who may suffer a lifetime of grief and sorrow.

Abortion is not a health service. The government claims that the killing of the unborn is “a reproductive choice for women” and yet refuses to allow taxpayers the right to choose not to fund the killing.

Taxpayers who have no choice but to fund the murder of the innocent, thereby intrinsically implicating them in the killing and causing them to have the blood of the innocent on their hands. The government respects the right of doctors and nurses to refuse on conscience grounds from being involved in the killing of the innocent, why then do they refuse the right of taxpayers to follow their conscience and refuse to have their taxes used to murder the innocent.

When is the government going to cease the killing of the innocent? When is it going to cease pretending that it is a health service and when is the government going to stop using our taxes to fund the killing of the innocent?

The New Zealand government now clearly intends to treat the murder of our unborn children as a health issue. It was a crime and should remain a crime. However abortion, previously administered by the Justice Department now comes under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Health.

We reluctantly conclude that the Ministry does not want to collect information that would require the Ministry to be actively involved in protecting the health and welfare of women. We believe that they wish to withhold contentious information on the treatment of women from the scrutiny of Parliament and the public.

Right to Life does not apologise for speaking up in defence of women. We ask the Ministry why the following information is not sought, collated and acted upon. Previously the now disbanded Abortion Supervisory Committee required the woman’s name on the abortion notification. Now the woman is dehumanised, her name is not required, she like her unborn child has become a victim of abortion and simply a statistic.

We make the following observations/and raise questions regarding the serious shortfalls that we believe are inherent in the administration of the provisions of the new Act:

The reason for an abortion is now not required. We know that previously 98% of all abortions were done for socio-economic reasons masquerading under the guise of mental health, the grounds used by abortionists to provide abortion on demand. Now that doctors do not feel obliged to lie, why cannot they disclose the reason for killing the child? This is especially important for post 20 week abortions.

Was the woman seeking an abortion because she was a victim of rape or incest? If the girl was under the age of 16 years, sexual intercourse with this girl would be statutory rape. Why is there no requirement in the form for the abortionist to report the alleged crime to the Ministry of Health and the Police?

Why is there no requirement in the form for recording if a woman received pre- decision or post abortion counselling and evidence that she declined it?

Why is there no requirement for an abortionist to report the reasons for declining to terminate the life of an unborn child on the form. Is the Ministry is assuming that no requests will be declined?

While there is a continuing requirement that complications arising from the abortion and detected prior to discharge after an abortion must be reported, we believe that complications that arise after discharge should also be required to be reported. If a woman ends up in A & E at hospital with a complication following an abortion, the complication and possible admittance to hospital should need to be reported. The fact that complications following abortion have never been recorded, add to the myth that abortion is safe and in fact safer than giving birth. This is simply incorrect.

Why is there no provision for reporting whether a woman is being coerced into having an abortion and/or has been threatened with violence and abandonment? Overseas studies in the United States reveal that 40% of women are coerced into having an abortion. This is a serious health issue for women. In the United States homicide is the leading cause of death for pregnant women.

The Abortion Supervisory Committee required that the abortionist encouraged any girl under the age of 16 to consult and seek support from her parents or guardian. There is no reason for the Ministry to discontinue collecting this information. In removing this requirement the Ministry is revealing a shocking lack of regard for the well being of both the girl, her child and her parents.

Right to Life believes that the abortion industry is now being given freedom to operate behind closed doors, beyond the scrutiny of Parliament and the public.

The government has a moral obligation to refuse to fund research or purchase morally contentious vaccines to fight Coronavirus and other threats to life and health, that have been derived from cell lines of children who have been killed in abortion.

It is abhorrent that vaccines developed from aborted cell lines contain the DNA of the children who were aborted.

Right to Life is writing to the Minister of Health requesting that the government purchase only ethically produced vaccines to combat the coronavirus.

The government has a duty to offer to the community vaccines that will not violate the conscience of those who are opposed to the killing of the innocent. We should not have to accept vaccines from aborted cell lines when other more morally acceptable alternatives exist.

The Congregation for the Faith in Rome issued an instruction, Dignitas Personae in 2008. The dignity of a person must be recognized in every human being from conception to natural death. This fundamental principle expresses a great “yes” to human life and must be at the centre of ethical reflection on biomedical research, which has an ever greater importance in today’s world.

Vaccines are developed on the cultures of human tissue of babies killed before birth, precisely because they are human. It would be hypocritical of the government to purchase these vaccines when it has just recently rushed the anti-life Abortion Legislation Act through parliament on the pretext that the unborn child is not a human being. Is the government now prepared to concede that the unborn child is a human being?

There are two main aborted cell lines developed in 1964 and 1970 from healthy aborted children killed in the second trimester that are used to produce vaccines. There were hundreds of unborn babies killed before these cell lines were perfected. New cell lines continue to be developed from the human remains of babies killed before birth.

French pharmaceutical company Sanofi Pasteur is hoping to have a morally acceptable vaccine ready for human testing later this year. Two American companies, Johnson & Johnson and Moderna expect to commence human testing, the former in July and the latter in September 2020. Both of these companies are using unethical aborted cell lines. The government should not purchase unethically produced vaccines from these companies.

Governments should seek to fund research on, and purchase, morally uncontentious vaccines, both to reward morally uncontentious research and to provide more citizens with vaccines they can in conscience accept. Internationally, there are many vaccines that have been developed using aborted baby cell lines. it is very much to be hoped that morally un-contentious vaccines will be made widely available to all peoples of the world, both to fight the COVID-19 pandemic and to combat other threats to life and health.

Family First’s partnership website Choose Life recently posted a very comprehensive article summarising the glaring problems and extreme provisions within the Jacinda Ardern’s, recently enacted 2020 Abortion Legislation Act. The post also exposes how amendments that would have mitigated the more extreme aspects of the bill, such as the born alive provision and fetal pain provision were all voted down by a majority of our MP’s. The implications of these amendments being rejected is quite frankly shocking.

The post also presents the voting record of all MP’s not only on the Bill but on each of the major table SOP’s (Amendments).